top of the world

tyler and i are running in big baz's 15k this saturday. do i feel ready? hmm...we've done quite a bit of running lately, but i've felt quite tired after the last three. crikey. we did a beach run last thursday and since it was high tide, we ran in soft dry sand. my legs were on fire by the time we made it to the balboa pier. we made it halfway back to the newport pier when we decided to run on the boardwalk. t's knee was bothering him and while i wasn't happy about that, i was thankful i could get off the sand.

we also had a beautiful run at el morro. we took a different route that time and ended up going through some incredible areas, including this pretty grassy meadow area:

you can faintly see the trail through the grass behind me.
we went back to el morro this past saturday (we had and are having the most incredible weather - it was nearly 80 degrees over the weekend!), but a park ranger was standing at the gate turning people away. the park is now closed indefinitely because of the recent rains we had and some of the trails need major repair. so we ended up going to top of the world in laguna beach which was awesome but very challenging. it was alllll the way down and then alllll the way up. turns out we did over 900 feet of elevation. some areas were so steep and over that sandstone that makes it really slippery. i sat and slid/crawled my way down in a couple of areas. this was down "car wreck canyon." we figured out why it was called that when we got to the bottom:

i was pretty tired after this run (more like hike). on the way up (and i mean up), i could see tyler waaaay up ahead, teeny tiny in the distance. i tried running at some points thinking i might catch up, but some of the uphill was so steep. overall though, it was a beautiful trail. we also saw some amazing carved out cave boulders. maybe you have to see them so that makes sense? we were kicking ourselves for not having brought our phones to take photos.

so, saturday will be here before we know it, and i'm not sure if i'll feel 100% ready. i am excited though because my parents will be here. it'll be their first time seeing me race (and compete in anything athletically for that matter).

stay tuned.

xo,
jessica

car wreck canyon photo via here.